Fun, Fun, Fun!

Last weekend we took another trip to Prineville to work on the Martin's house. This time we recruited Truman and Shannon, Tony, and Chelsea to go also. Not only is it great so there are more boys to work on the house but it is nice for us girls to get together and just hang out.

Then there is Tony. We love Tony to death. My kids love Tony to death. I don't think there is a person we have adopted so quickly into our family. We love having him in our home and I hope he enjoys being there. Although.....I am not sure he always knows what he is in for. It seems there is always something he helps us do, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. Little did he know when he went to lay down on the floor after a long days work at the house that he would be attacked by mob of monsters. He took it just like a good Uncle would, but didn't go down with out a good fight!



Then today after he got home from snowboarding with Blayne, he spent some quality time with Maddalyn. She definitely looked like she was feeling better then when he left her this morning, sick and laying in Mommies bed with a box of kleenex in hand and exhausted Mommy.




I don't know what it is with kids and ice cream. I hate to give it to them because they make such a big mess, but how can you go through life without having ice cream. When I was growing up my G'pa Joe always gave us ice cream money. This is a very positive memory I have, who wouldn't it's ice cream. Too bad I grew to be a lactose intolerant adult. Regardless, this is also a tradition G'pa Joe has started with my kids. But my mom being their "G'pa Joe" does it too. So needless to say, my kids love ice cream and never seem to want for it, they have ice cream money coming from G'ma Julie and Great G'pa Joe. But wait... The tradition I started is, I take their ice cream and put it in their piggy banks and then I pay for the ice cream, which I will continue to do as long as I can afford it. OR...dare I say....maybe....one day.....they will just not get ice cream!
So, back to the point. While we are at Ashley's, ice cream is a very common offer we use to bribe the kids to behave in the car while we are running errands. It is definitely worth the mess to get a few moments of quiet and cooperation in the car.

Our snow sledding trip!

Like I promised, here are some pictures from our snow trip. The kids had so much fun we definitely will be doing it again sooner than later. We went to the Hood River parking lot of Mt. Hood Meadows. It ended up being a great place, the boys kind of made us a our own sledding trail on the side. Half way into our trip they made a ramp which spiced up the kids experience. Victoria, being the mild temper girl she is, didn't want to sled. I bribed her that she could have a sleep over with Emily (McNamee) if they would sled down the hill together. They did, but only once. Of course Blayne wouldn't have that so a little later he ran, grabbed Tori, jumped on the sled, and down the hill they went with Victoria screaming the entire way. Not like Maddy, who kept saying, "again Daddy, again!" I can't remember the last time I saw my kids have so much fun together, not to mention having Curt and Aimee with their kids and Truman, Shannon, and Lexi. Of course last year we had enough of our own snow we didn't have to go anywhere. Blayne took my kids sledding last year with Uncle Jacob and Emily, and Tony but I stayed back with Maddy and Ashley with Abram. It is great to have all of my kids at an age where nobody gets left out and they are all big enough to go and join in the fun.

The mystery that is a mother's purse

So, we had Truman, Shannon, and Lexi over for the weekend. We were all sitting around one evening and my purse was next me. Maddalyn and Lexi decided they wanted to go through my purse. It was quite entertaining to them. Kind of like in Mary Poppins when things just kept coming out of her purse. It was pretty funny!








So, after all the fun I do see a possible problem, NOW THEY KNOW WHAT'S IN MY PURSE!!! I am going to have to pay a lot better attention about where I set my purse down.
Truman and Shannon ended up staying over Friday night after the boys went snowboarding. So then Saturday morning we decided to take the kids sledding. Our first sledding trip of the year, awfully pathetic. We also went with our other good friends Curt and Aimee. We had so much fun, I'm not going to go into detail. I need the pictures from Aimee first and then I'll do a separate post. I will tell you this, Maddalyn is fearless and a natural snow goer!

Ending 2009 and Beginning 2010

Christmas was great and apparently we did good on telling Santa what Gavin wanted. Gavin has played his DS every chance he gets. He plays it anywhere and everywhere. It is pretty entertaining. It is also a great bargaining tool for Mom to get him to focus and behave. Once again I find myself black mailing my kids :)


For New Years Eve we headed over to Ashley's. It was a "Prineville" weekend. Blayne committed to Jacob to try to be there every other weekend to help build their house, we have been pretty consistent. So, it was a work weekend that happened to also be New Years. We got to Ashley's and she had a houseful! We managed to stay up late enough to celebrate. Then Friday it was back to work.
Ashley has this hat at here house that every kid managed to have it on at least once this weekend, it was hilarious!!





Shortly after, Maddalyn was playing and apparently she couldn't decide which toy to play with so it was entertaining to watch her try to play with all of them at the same time. Ashley referred to her as a bag lady.


So as entertaining as 2009 ended, off we go to 2010! We have several hopes and plans for this upcoming year. We are so blessed and have so many things to be thankful for including our healthy family. So here's to you and yours, hoping you have all the blessings you stand in need of. HAPPY NEW YEAR from the Yates!!!